9 hours later, and those bottles still look the same. No separation of pulp and liquid on top
The short boil time meant that I could do a second batch today, this time a mix of Costuloto Genovese, Russo Sicilian Togeta, Shere Khan, some more 97L07 and a couple of odd ones. Once again the emphasis on sauce tomatoes meant for another short boil and no liquid on top of the passata.

24 pounds of tomatoes run through the food mill, boiled and bottled and all washing up done inside 5 hours, a good session in my books.

They look spectacular!

Tonights pic of Hokowase strawberries, a breakfast bowls worth for tomorrow nights dinner. Yummy.

Picked a few more Hokowase strawberries today
Not a lot, but considering that the plants were transplanted on January 14 and are still small, they are doing well.
Filling in where some of the transplants did not survive today and adding extra plants to the patch.

Midgem berry, Austromyrtus Coppertops

One of our native bush foods that are slowly becoming better known and more available is the midgem berry. Small plants and fruit, our plants are less than 5 months in the ground and are from a hybrid between two species.
They are strong flavoured, but it is a unique flavour that I can't compare to anything else. The plants will remain in the ground for a few more years at least.

How do you use the Midgem berry?

First time growing them @MissS, just eating them fresh at this stage.

Do they have much sweetness, or just an unusual taste on the tongue? In other words, can you enjoy them all by themselves, or do they need to be mixed in with some kind of dessert, cream or yogurt?

I would call it more an aromatic type of taste, unusual most definitely, not overly sweet, but can be enjoyed by themselves @ddsack. Those that I have eaten so far were straight off the bushes.

Thanks, they sound worth a try if we ever get them over here.

Went looking for some beetroot to pull and put my hand on one then quickly decided to leave it alone and grabbed 4 small ones instead. The one I left was another Cylindria plant, about 9 inches long and 3 across. Would have kept the four of us chewing for a few days, but better off as seed stock.

Tonights pick of cucumbers. This will be the last of the crystal apples, drop off in size indicates that plants are nearly done, so they got pulled

Those small ones are great for snacking. I used to grow lemon and apple cucumbers in our garden in Wisconsin. Our son loved to have the small round ones as snack.

Rust - I noticed something the other day hat may lead to my Garlic plantings being curtailed entirely, or a move to a selected small range of varieties with a more serious attempt at seed growing being made. Not sure yet, still have a lot of thinking to do over this but the big problem that I noticed was rust on some of the fog grass in the lawn. We are in a winter/spring wet area with plenty of fog grass around us, not only on our place and it all has rust on it.

I believe that the Turban varieties that I grow were harvested before the rust (a fungus from the Puccinia genus) became established on them, while all the later varieties were infected to some extent.

I do like the clove size of the porcelain group garlics and would rather not stop growing them, but may have to. Alternative is go made on the attempt to cross pollinate some of the Porcelains in the off chance that there are some resistance genetics in the mix.

Will cross post this to the diseases sub forum.

Seeing that a number of the members here have praised dried cherry tomatoes and our food dehydrator was sitting idle, I thought I would have a go and doing some. First up was a grip ripe and pick job on Sirja's Love, in both red and yellow.
Made picking so much easier and I was able to do it in the shade, a definite bonus when temperatures are pushing 100F.

Net result of pick was about 2.5 to 3 quarts of yellow and 2 to 2.5 quarts of red


These translated into 3 trays cut, ready to dry.
Still drying when I left for work tonight, will see what they are like when I get home

The tomatoes in the dryer vary in condition a bit, needing more time when I arrived home from work.
Might wind up putting some in the freezer rather than trying to dry them down. Time will tell.

Link for that dryer, s'il vous plaît.

The Gotch

I’ve dried them into a semi-pliable state and then will store them in the freezer. Seems to work well. They take up very little room when mostly dry so why not put them into a freezer. No chance really of spoilage when stored in the freezer other than freezer burn, but in my experience there’s not enough moisture in even the semi-pliable ones to set up freezer burn. I’ve also taken the small fruited tomatoes into crispy dry, but not cooked or burnt, territory. That very dry state of affairs works well also. Maybe the extra dry ones take a little longer to rehydrate. They extra dry ones eat a little bit like tomato candy, if there is such a thing.

I do lightly sprinkle sea salt onto the cut halves of my tomatoes meant for the dehydrator.

Every year I freeze 4 gallon bags of fresh tomatoes (I found if I do more, I have leftovers), and all the rest, I dehydrate. They are dried almost to crispy, but not quite, and I have never had any go bad, even in a couple of years. The reduction is almost exactly 1 lb to an ounce every time. One thing I do with my "old" dried tomatoes is make paste with it - I soak it in some warm water, enough to make about 8 oz with each oz of dried - then grind it to a smooth paste in my Vitamix, which totally grinds up the skin and seeds. Then I cook this down in a NS wok - don't use this for many things, but it's great for this, and similar things.

Those dehydrated Sunsugars are almost like raisins! Hmmm...I never thought about using them like dried fruits, in a dessert bread, but it might be good!

Cornelius_Gotchberg wrote: ↑Tue Mar 12, 2024 7:09 am Link for that dryer, s'il vous plaît.

The Gotch

That one is sold Down Under by Fowlers Vacola, our main home food preserving supply company. I regard it as only average in performance. There are threads on here discussing dryers, @pepperhead212 is one of the main users if I recall correctly